TRENTON — Just shy of its 145th birthday, the Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce has become the MIDJersey Chamber of Commerce. The old name didn’t quite reflect the chamber’s reach and openness to businesses from afar, officials said yesterday.

President and CEO Robert Prunetti announced the rebranding at a press conference held at Mercer County Waterfront Park. He said businesses beyond Mercer, some of whom the chamber has already included in its membership, were in need of a network and support services that the MIDJersey chamber can provide.

“We looked at the market and found a market void,” Prunetti said. “We needed to figure out how to provide leadership to fill the void.”

The solution was to expand the chamber’s service area to encompass New Jersey’s entire central region, Prunetti said. The chamber spent two years conducting research and found that 35 percent of the chamber’s members were from outside of Mercer, he said.

“It was clear that there needed to be a larger umbrella to represent the middle part of our state,” Prunetti said.

The area is also served by the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, which serves businesses in Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset counties; and the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, which is based in Trenton and serves about 1,200 businesses throughout the state.

The newly branded MIDJersey chamber has long sought to attract outside membership.
“When we say we’re from Trenton, people have different ideas about where we are,” Prunetti said. “The rebranding gives us the opportunity to define ourselves and our qualities that make us unique from North and South Jersey.”

The MIDJersey chamber will continue to promote economic and community growth, he said.

“The small businesses will benefit from the strong and growing networks of our 10 chapters,” Prunetti said.

The rebranded chamber also introduced a new logo, a red “ring of commerce.” Prunetti said the ring was made open-ended to symbolize an inclusive and expanding community of diverse businesses and growth, and red to symbolize energy and strength, Prunetti said.

He also introduced a new website for the chamber and said the organization’s magazine will get a new look.

But the rebranding of the chamber isn’t the first change the chamber has seen since its inception in the 1800s.

The chamber has seen multiple logo and name changes throughout the years. It was previously the Mercer County Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Mercer County Chamber of Commerce, among other names.

The chamber has also moved its headquarters from Trenton to Hamilton within the last seven years and seen its membership numbers hover around the 1,000 mark for the past seven years.

And while this year marks a big step with a new name and image for the chamber, the idea of encorporating surrounding counties has been the chamber’s idea since 2007.

Allentown attorney Anthony Muscente, the chairman of the chamber’s Route 130 North chapter, said the name change will help businesses that are close to Mercer County, but not technically in the county to find more business.

“Allentown and Upper Freehold is considered the panhandle of Monmouth County,” he said. “We’re isolated.”